Finding laughter in the pain
by paxbanana
Summary: Measure Each Step side-story - Katara's thoughts after the events of Book 2 epilogue. Yet even in that terrible situation, Azula still manages to be Azula.


Katara loved waterbending. She loved using it as an art; she loved it as a weapon; she loved healing with it.

But seeing Azula open her eyes, watch Katara reach out for her, and flinch away was too much. Servants held Azula's shoulders down on the bed, and Katara shook the tears from her eyes to cradle Azula's neck in her hands.

She held in mind all of the pictures and diagrams she'd studied into the late hours of each night and felt for each part of Azula's neck, gently teasing the tissues to reduce swelling and pain. Reducing the pain by causing it. Azula jerked beneath Katara's hands and cried silently, her mouth open to give a scream she couldn't voice.

The larynx was the hardest part. There were so many little bones, all sitting in careful alignment to allow breathing, swallowing, and voice. The structures had healed with more scarring than Katara liked, but they should have been able to function as a whole. The nerves supplying them had been damaged, and that wasn't anything Katara or the royal physician could heal. The only blessing was that Azula could still swallow. Without that…she would certainly die a painful death.

Katara wondered if she hadn't caused more damage by her ignorance the night of the arrows. She'd reached out with healing water in her hands and realized in one frozen moment of horror that she had no idea what all the tiny structures beneath her fingers were. This was not a wound she'd ever had to heal before, and this would take more than a little tweak of chi.

Azula's royal physician had stayed all night with Katara that first night, explaining what he could in words. He'd been sleeping on the couch in the sitting room, ready to offer his advice even in the face of Katara's angry defensiveness. She didn't trust anyone else to touch Azula…but she didn't entirely trust herself either.

Yanu, the jolly man who was always in the archives, carried every scroll and book on anatomy and healing and medicine from the archives to Azula's sitting room. Scrolls and books were still scattered everywhere, and Katara could close her eyes and picture the detailed diagrams floating behind her eyelids.

"I'm sorry, Azula. I'm so sorry," Katara murmured, brushing Azula's greasy hair from her forehead. Azula's eyes opened, and her ragged breath rumbled. She wheezed and snored and her throat made a soft roaring sound when her breath came too quickly. Katara placed her hands over the ugly divot that sat below Azula's right breast and soothed those tissues as best she could. The lungs were easier to understand than the complexity of the neck. The royal physician had placed a tube in Azula's chest to release the air that had collapsed her lung, but he'd pulled it the day before when Katara confirmed Azula's lung was open again. As open as it could be. Now Katara did her best to reduce the scar tissue.

She could do nothing about the infection that had set in. The physician claimed to have an injection that would combat it, and in the face of her own uselessness, Katara had to trust him. There was so much she didn't even realize she didn't know. Her own arrogance made her so angry at herself.

Azula looked up at her, and Katara didn't know what her girlfriend was seeing. Azula seemed to slip between waking dreams and reality often, and it was hard to tell when Azula couldn't speak. Now Azula's golden gaze sharpened. She looked at Katara. Her arm raised to point…so weakly. Her hand trembled and her elbow fell back to the mattress.

Katara turned her head. Azula was pointing to the sitting room. "Do you want something?"

Azula nodded with difficulty.

"Something in the sitting room?"

Azula closed her eyes and shook her head, wincing at her own movement.

She lifted her hand and cupped her fingers, rolling her wrist. Katara didn't understand; she shook her head, so upset with herself. She should have been able to fix this. Azula saw the gesture, and she closed her eyes, blinking out tears as she did so.

"Your writing desk, Princess?" Kota asked softly from the doorway.

Azula's eyes opened. She nodded firmly. Her eyes drifted closed again. Katara hesitantly placed her palm against Azula's hot, dry forehead; it was a sharp relief when Azula didn't flinch or turn from her touch.

Kota was back a moment later with a scroll, a flat piece of solid wood, and a quill pen. She settled those items beneath Azula's hand and wrapped her fingers around the pen. Azula opened her eyes again. She wrote two clumsy scratches, characters that were of the phonetic script of the Fire Nation. Katara hated that she hadn't learned it. She watched Kota read the paper, holding her breath.

Kota smiled.

"What?" Katara glanced down at Azula as she said it.

"It says 'bath'," Kota said.

For the first time in a week, Katara was able to laugh. Only Azula—on the brink of death, running a horrible fever, and suffering the worst injuries Katara had ever tried to heal—would be worried about cleanliness. She leaned down and kissed Azula's forehead. "Okay. I think we can work something out."

-end-


End file.
